Good evening Monica. My cooking skills are atrocious! Do you like good hearty home made stews and soups? If you don’t care much for tomato based foods then I’m guessing you don’t care for chili or lasagna. Make a list of some of your favourite dishes and then google cooking them on a budget. Freeze leftovers if any. Try and pick up some apples and bananas as they seem to be one of the cheaper fruits. Oatmeal packets can always fill a hole and tend to be cheap comfort food. All of this is of course when you get your next funds for groceries, hopefully another child will have a “feeling”.
Support wanes based on crisis level and what people have going on in their lives. And of course when talking about gamblers there are those that wade back into the chaos fairly quickly. Then there are moods. Not in the mood to give advice, not in the mood to receive advice, not in the mood to do anything!
And you are stuck my friend in the super sucking quick sand. If we could pull you out we would. All I can do is offer you encouragement to get through this. A job is going to come. But you need to be able to take it. Sustenance is getting to be top of mind! So make a plan. Ask for help. Don’t just fade away in bed. I was glad to hear little hits of interest in your post. The Olympics. Much better way to pass the time than American politics! I should have followed your example.
197 hard days clean. Sometimes people who aren’t gambling addicts have breaks in their employment due to various reasons in the economy. Sometimes they have a cushion and sometimes they don’t because they are shopping addicts or have always lived above their means, cars trips etc. This period of time, without a job, and without the cushion that gambling stole from you, has been tough. No one can can ever say you didn’t suffer from this addiction and the effects. You’ve paid dearly for this. You may feel like you can’t promise to new comers that things will get better when they stop gambling. But what would have happened if you kept gambling? Any pittance you could get? Maybe you wouldn’t have even started dealing with your issues. Maybe you’d be homeless and a criminal. So we can usually promise that continuing to gamble will only make things worse. I’m happy for you and that you have made it 197 days Monica. You weren’t making things worse. You have a real address to put on job applications. You aren’t in jail. When an offer comes (and it will) you can take it.
I also think part of being successful in recovery is having new habits and a new way of spending time that you can maintain when you are no longer broke. Walks, reading, inspirational programs, crossword puzzles, puzzles, anything but gambling. So having 197 days of non gambling time in, is great in that department. You’ve spent your time doing something besides gambling.
Long post, sorry to ramble. But you are in a much better place than you would be if you had kept going. And who knows what another 197 days will bring. Pete gone, your son there to share expenses and contribute to the the groceries, and a big open question mark. Congratulations on your clean time. We can all pray that the best is yet to come.
Laura